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Gelateria

The first gelato I had was called CioccoChocco or something similar. It was double chocolate with coconut flakes -a heavenly balance of cool, cream, and chocolatey goodness. It would be hard to go back to Germany knowing there would always be better gelato here in Rome. And after this one scoop, it will be impossible to convince myself to accept an ice cream in the U.S. The Marble Slab has nothing on this Italian gelato! My second scope was Pistachio. Oh. It tasted so nutty and not too sweet. Just whatever you do here in Rome, don’t go Giolitti Gelateria. The gelato taste like it’s made from powder. Yeah there might be over 50 flavors but you have to wait in a line sometimes stretching out of the door to get your fake gelato. Go anywhere else -like San Crispino, Via della Panetteria 42. They offer Gelato without preservatives and artificial coloring. I had the licorice gelato, ah divine and unique!

The Others

There are few people begging on the streets, most I saw were women. So sad. On our way back to our B&B, a man with a big belly made attempts to sleep in his car under a pile of newspapers. Another time, we walked by a man with a ridiculously unkept toupee. Odd because although the majority of men where dressed shabby, the hair remained flawless. Watch out for the men from India selling roses, they are aggressive little buggers. When it rains they ditch the flowers for umbrellas. If you are brave enough to walk without an umbrella on such an occasion you must also brave the Umbrella pushers. They are at every corner and shoving their collection in your face.

Security

Don’t scratch your butt in public -on the streets, that is. There are cameras at every corner and incrementally if it is an especially long building. “Don’t you feel unusually safe? A creepy safe” I waved at a few cameras, not like they’ll notice. Who can watch all that security footage? There are cops everywhere doing less than cop stuff -nothing. I spotted one leaning against the car eating ice cream. With so little ‘cop’ exercise it was good to know that a few cops had a telephone cord attached to their gun in case it happened to spring from their holsters.

Tally up the Flirts

So a graying, thin haired man in a suit guarding the side tunnel to Vatican Wall near the Piazza Risorgimento gave me a Ciao bella after I looked up at him with a smile. It was by accident, I’d say, because I was happily scrolling through our pictures at that very moment. It was cute. I got the most attention when the boys got to talking about cars and fell into their natural man cadence, leaving me behind to get further distracted. Another encounter happened again at the Piazza del Popolo. As I was walking by the church of Santa Maria del Popolo when a man in a suit spoke in Italian to me. I almost answered him in German because I’ve been speaking German almost exclusively with the boys and any time I hear a foreign accent my brain switches to the only foreign language it knows, although English is universal. He then spoke in English and told me there is a very beautiful painting inside the church. Then he said that he was surprised I didn’t speak Italian because I look Italian. Oh? I look Italian? There’s another nationality tally I can add to my list proving I’m morphing Betty Crocker‘s cousin.

My first impression of Romans: These people are on the GO! My second impression: They live for dinner. In just three short days, we saw it all -what Rome is like sunny, rainy, during the day, night, weekday, weekend and on holiday. I love the mixer of the new with the ancient architecture. This is a three part summary of my observations while in Rome. This first part features a short film of a some of the major sights in Rome. There is a mistake in the film captioning, maybe you can spot it.

Auto Madness

A taxi from Leonardo Di Vinci Airport cost 60 Euro for three people to get into town, there is no meter. The ride back from the city to the airport costs 50 Euro. In terms of obeying the universal rules of the road, our driver into town was just short of mad for American standards and ludicrous for German. But he wasn’t alone. Tailgating is common, driving slower or the same speed as the right lane in the left lane is common, making 3 lanes from a one lane street is also common. The driver never cursed or made obscene gestures, which held my level of WTF down to a few wide eyed, nervous giggles. Don’t even think about riding a bicycle in the city. You will die. Seriously.

Language Barriers

My appetite is either larger than the two men I’m with or I’m just hungry more often. I made us stop at a Cafe that sold sandwiches, panino and tramezzino. They offer them cold or hot. But in Italian, the word for ‘hot’ is caldo, which we (Alex and I) mistook for the German kalt. Opps! The most important two Italian words I learned donne and uomini, women and men -sometimes there were no english translation. I kept saying the name of the B&B street address wrong, Via Palmero instead of Via Palermo. An inherited trait I like to affectionately call, a case of the dads. I was the brunt of the joke from the master of five languages Belgian. :tongue2:

Coffee Bean

Our first Cappuccino did not fall short of expectations. I can’t describe it, you just know that it’s exact what you want. The bitterness comes from the price. Our 2005 German tourist guide said that cafe was günstig, a bargain compared to those sold in Munich. Apparently, inflation has caught up across the EU. A Cappuccino ranged in price from 3.00 to 4.50 Euro. We paid a whopping 6 Euro per Cappuccino at the historic Antico Caffe Greco on the Via Condotti (a street compared to Maximilianstr. in Munich or Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills)

Street Walk Sightings

Along the Via della Concillazino toward the Vatican, massive palms grow in pots, some of the roots have split the clay. Seagulls fly over head and make a sound much different from those I remember in Florida. Most of the street merchants are illegal, I presume. They sell knock-off Prada sunglasses, thick DG belts, ladies handbags hang from their arms when the police are near by. Speaking of ladies, there was an Italian beauty queen for every corner of every intersection. If you walk passed a certain water fountain, the water smells perfumed.